Acting Minister of Finance Gorden Moyo said normalcy had returned to the population census process and training of enumerators started in some areas yesterday while other centres were still “rigorously” screening prospective enumerators.
This followed a series of disruptions of the process by soldiers and alleged Zanu PF youths, demanding inclusion in the national programme ahead of teachers and other civil servants who have conducted the process since independence.
“Normalcy has returned and in most centres, screening of prospective enumerators was in progress today (yesterday). In other centres like Gweru, Kwekwe and some parts of Harare, training was going on well,” Moyo told NewsDay yesterday.
“We hope by tomorrow (today) all centres across the country will be training the enumerators going through the Heroes holidays so that we meet our target and commence the census on August 17.”
Moyo has been acting on behalf of Finance minister Tendai Biti who resumes work today.
When the situation seemingly got out of control last week, Cabinet took a position ordering soldiers, who were demanding 10 000 positions in the process, to back down.
MDC-T last week accused Zanu PF of attempting to smuggle soldiers and Zanu PF activists to become enumerators with the absolute aim of manipulating figures for election purposes.
Screening was being done by the Zimbabwe National Statistic Agency (Zimstat).
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MDC-T in a statement said: “The involvement of the army, the intelligence and Zanu PF youth officers is a well-planned move to militarise this civilian process. It is clearly meant to falsify the results of the census, which results may provide pointers in areas where elections were rigged to suit Zanu PF in the past.”
But Zanu PF denied any links with the chaos involved in the recruitment of census enumerators claiming there was no link between Zanu PF and the Ministry of Finance conducting the process through Zimstat.
Enumerators in the population census would walk away with about $800 for the two weeks they would be working across the country.
